


The Thought That Counts

by Mar (orphan_account)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-27 00:18:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1707932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Mar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Come to think of it, Gaara is pretty certain this is the first night Kiba’s not been home in all the six months of living together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thought That Counts

**Author's Note:**

> me and my friend were dicussing kibagaara and it became the crack pairing of my soul and i had to drabble a situation we were talking about  
> it kind of fizzles out at the end because my thought process went south but w/e

It’s a bit strange to be greeted with an empty apartment, Gaara muses as he slips out of his shoes. Usually the boisterous brunette is there to greet him near instantly with a bombardment of concerns and pestering much more suited to an elderly parent than a boyfriend. Alright, so the doting suited Kiba perfectly fine, but that didn’t mean it was any less tedious to go through every single night. As nice as the gesture of it was often times Gaara wanted nothing more than to sink onto the nearest comfortable surface (couch, bed, floor - it was all the same) without being pestered every step of the way.

Sometimes it was like living with his siblings all over again, something he had hopped to escape from upon moving.

Now, though, his journey to the couch was uninterrupted. There were no warm smells in the air despite it being almost one in the morning and too late to be making a legitimate meal as he had grown accustomed to. Even dealing with none of the lights being on to begin with was strange, dark and a little foreboding. Come to think of it, Gaara is pretty certain this is the first night Kiba’s not been home in all the six months of living together. Or at the very least it’s rare enough he can’t recall the sensations properly.

He purses his lips as he stares at the blank television which remained off, contemplative. An unnerving sort of contemplative where he looked focused on whatever was fixated in front of him, despite having no concern for the outside world. His expression ever intimidating no matter the circumstances or inner workings of his mind. An unfortunate feature that made working in some place as cheery as a flower shop a difficult task.

That was also in part due to the steam of idiotic customers, but those were musings for a different time. Tonight his mind was focused on the lack of his dog breathed significant other. Speaking of dog breath, there was one more factor of his coming home that was off as well, at least until the sound of a stampede came barreling down the hallway.

No amount of quick reaction time could save the red head from his fate, that fate being an obscenely large canine launching himself into his lap and Gaara was just glad he’d managed to make it to the couch so at least he wasn’t knocked over. It was an occurrence that happened too often.  
"Down," he insisted, but the word only gave the dog a chance to stick that slobbering tongue right into his mouth. Disgusting. Gaara curled his nose and shoved the animal away, looking soured and betrayed, though really he should be used to it by now. Akamaru was affectionate, even if he had cowered like a chicken shit when he was a whole lot smaller due to the red head’s naturally unsettling air about him, things were different now.

For what it was worth Akamaru settled down, his large head plopped into Gaara’s lap, and the young man was helpless to that face. ‘Pushover,’ he thought in reference to himself as he scratched the dog’s head, right behind his ears where he really liked it. A moment of normalcy before he remember that Kiba wasn’t in the other room preparing a plate for him, or finishing up a show.

He checked his phone to reread the text. ‘Emergency at work going 2 b out late leftovers in fridge pls feed Akamaru I’ll can u when I’m headed home.’ Spell check could only compensate for so much, certain chat speaks ingrained into his phone’s memory. Kiba said it was easier, Gaara said it was lazy, but as long as it was readable and got the point across there wasn’t really too much harm in it. He’d had professors that wrote worse.

"Just us tonight," Gaara said to the dog, his lips curled down in a frown that was commonplace for him. Akamaru seemed to get it, puffing out a noise in response. He was, undeniably, a huge daddy’s boy. Just like Kiba was a huge doggy’s boy. So much so that sometimes he felt like the large canine was a third party to their romantic set up, just as much included as a boyfriend.

Ridiculous.

He leaned back against the couch, letting himself lounge as comfortably as he could. He should probably go to bed, get to it somewhat early, but his shift wasn’t that bad for tomorrow. Somewhere around ten, and he never slept past seven no matter what time he went to bed, unless deathly ill. Going to bed without Kiba, however, seems unreasonable at this moment. At least going to bed when he’s not home. Like committing some taboo act. After all, Kiba always waits up for him when Gaara knows for a fact he could easily crash out around eight.

"Maybe I should do something for him," he commented aloud, feeling a little silly for it. Gaara was never one for unnecessary words, and using them when by himself seemed even more embarrassing somehow. Akamaru was there, though, didn’t he count. Back on track to the idea it didn’t sound so bad. Doing something nice for Kiba, welcoming him home warmly after a tough night as he was so willing to do for the red head. Gaara looked to the dog, lips pressed into a thin line as if he were expecting some sort of advice. instead all he got was a slobbery tongue on his wrist and dog drool would never not be gross.

Shoving the animal off his lap he rose to his feet, taking a moment to turn the TV on for some sort of background noise. Silence was nice, but he’d spent most of his childhood with it, and most of his miraculously obtained friends were chatterboxes. Naturally he’d developed an inclination to something making some sort of noise somewhere in the back of his mind. With that done he did what all troubled geniuses did when they were in need of some sort of idea, went to the window to stare menacingly out of it. He enjoyed the scene, they had a nice apartment, second story, overlooking the street and the bus stop. Okay, really, it wasn’t that great, but he liked people watching and this was a prime location for that. Seeing him from the window had caused several passerbys near heart attacked in the past, and the children had all sorts of rumors revolving around the unsettling young man.

Some of which may not be entirely off base.

Tonight wasn’t proving very productive in terms of night life. They were in a nice enough district you didn’t see whores and drug addicts running about at these hours, just the occasional person unlucky enough to be caught out so late. A cat passed by once during his staring, Gaara dismayed with himself to find that he’d been holding his breath when a car came swerving towards it. There’d been a time he wouldn’t care, a time where if he were behind the wheel he’d probably go out of his way to run the beast over. Good thing he’d been too young to drive back then.

The cat was unharmed, but he didn’t make much progress. Something nice, something nice. Kiba usually had food made for his return, so maybe that was the starting place. Deciding to take this as a good sign he turned from the window and meandered into the kitchen, which was practically like stepping into foreign territory. Cooking and Gaara weren’t two things that meshed together for a variety of reasons. The most important being he didn’t know jack shit about it, secondly his taste were strange, to put it lightly. Some of the most mundane, but beloved and classic dishes left a funny taste in his mouth, while he had no trouble ingesting what most would feel sick just thinking about. Tongue being a particular favorite. Kiba, usually, didn’t make many weirder dishes, instead he had it narrowed down to things like burgers and pasta and steak prepared just the way the red head’s picky tastebuds would allow.

With that in mind he knew he needed to think of how Kiba liked his foods, which was easier said than done as he didn’t do much cooking for the other, so he didn’t get much of a chance to figure out those secrets. He knew what his boyfriend enjoyed ordering when they got take out or fast food, and for a brief moment Gaara considered the idea of just getting his favorite Thai dish and calling it a night. It lacked the sentiment, he decided.

He was going to regret this.

"Be happy I’m such a good sister otherwise I would have ignored you calling at stupid in the morning." Gaara could admit she was a pretty good sister, these days, but he doubted it was that which drove her to answer the phone. More likely she was an overly concerned sister who rarely received a genuine phone call from her baby brother and thus immediately suspected something might actually be wrong and he might be in some sort of distress.   
"What do you need?"

Well, here goes nothing. “Kiba’s working late tonight.” Silence for a moment.

"And?"

"And I want to do something to welcome him home. Something," he paused, searching for the right word, "romantic."

A strange, strangled noise came from the other line. “Romantic?” She echoed as if she could hardly believe herself. It was fair enough, romance wasn’t something Gaara was particularly good at. Sure he knew the basic foundations of it and of a good relationship, dates, emotional attraction, good communication, reassurance, little gestures. Not that he put them all into practice at all times because he was still a bit socially inept and had difficulties with personal things.

He was getting better.

"Can’t ever say I’d expect you to come to me with this sort of problem. So what sort of romantic are we talking here, romantic or /romantic/?" It was the inclination of her voice that said it all and he could practically imagine the ridiculous waggle her brows might have given.

"Sexual innuendos are more Kankuro’s style," Gaara replied flatly, unfazed, before adding, "but no, not that romantic."

Making a noise of understanding Temari remained otherwise quiet as she thought, though even over the phone she could feel her younger siblings impatience. “Alright so taking out putting on some lingerie, what about dinner? Maybe put some dog treats on a plate and drizzle them with chocolate sauce.” Gaara didn’t even dignify that with a response.

"Not even a laugh? At least humor me a little. Seriously, though, just do something nice. I don’t know what either of you consider romantic, and you’re just doing it to welcome him home. Which, by the way, would usually fall under /that/ romantic." He refrained from pointing out her blatant adherence to the societal standard of sex and romantic gestures and that no it did not usually fall there, it’s just what she considered normal. Debating wasn’t something he was interested in doing right now, he’d correct her at a later date when he wasn’t trying to do something nice for his boyfriend.

Maybe he should go with the treat idea.

"I’ll figure it out." Sparing no formality or goodbye he promptly ended the call, stuffing his phone back into his pocket before reconsidering and going to the internet. He should have started there first.

After about twenty minutes of looking through a variety of webpages that didn’t adjust well to mobile he came to the conclusion that food was the best route. It was painfully obvious in hindsight, but he was at least thankful that he had some ideas where to start. Gaara came to the conclusion that heart shaped pancakes would do the trick.

Miraculously they had everything necessary to make them, most important being actual pancake mix instead of him having to try and figure out how to do it from scratch. That was another task for another day. Mixing everything together was simple enough and during that time he considered that yeah, yeah maybe he could actually do this. It wasn’t so difficult.

His opinion on that changed once he actually got the batter into the skillet. First he completely forgot to aim for a heart shape, ending with an oblong semi-circle that burnt along the edges. The next one was almost like a heart, with the addition of a lump sticking out of the side, crisp on one side and likely not cooked all the way through. Gaara was done already, so close to calling it quits and saying that Kiba could deal with no kind gestures upon his return, but he steeled his resolve and continued to preserver.

He ended up using all the batter he’d made with no decent result. Pancakes, as it turned out, were not his forte at all. Especially shaped pancakes. Some sort of made it into their intended formation, but nothing was perfect, and they didn’t look appealing at all.

—

Kiba knew something was off the moment he stepped through the door. For one thing lights were still on, meaning that Gaara was still up, which was not surprising actually now that he thought about it. Insomniac tendencies and all, but usually he managed to coax the other into bed by this hour. Key words being ‘he managed to coax’. So that made sense, but what didn’t make sense was the smell of burnt something. As he pondered a wet nose nudged his hand before Akamaru jumped up, pays resting heavily on his chest while he was subject to an attack of drooly dog tongue.

"Hey, hey! Down boy. Down. Good." Once Akamaru listened and returned to his four feet he began to sniff at his human, customary for when Kiba returned home smelling of other canines. His attention didn’t remain on the dog for long, shifting over to the red head currently seated at their dining room table, elbows up and fingers laced together.

Oh no.

He knew that haunted look, that posture. Gaara had done something he deeply regretted and was brooding over it. “Jeez, not even a welcome home kiss?” Kiba spoke up, stepping across the room to get to the table. Gaara grunted and frowned harder, lines of tension creasing his forehead. It was then Kiba noted the stack of malformed and mostly crisped pancakes on the table.

"Woah, did you actually try cooking?" He sounded incredulous, which did absolutely nothing for Gaara’s mood. A look was shot his way, narrowed and dangerous.

"An attempt ended in failure. You’re the better cook."

"Okay, not going to argue there, but why? Plenty of stuff you could have heated up."

Gaara shifted in his seat, staring Kiba down an uncomfortably long moment before closing his eyes. A red hue tinged his cheeks, barely noticeable, but there all the same. “Wanted to do something nice for you - they were supposed to be hearts.”

It took a moment to sink in, Kiba staring dully before he realized what had just happened and ended up barking out a laugh. “I’m touched.” With the look he was being given touched might be accurate, touched by a fist to the face maybe. He bent down to loop his arms around Gaara’s shoulders, showing true courage, or perhaps true stupidity.

"Seriously, it’s sweet! They looked delicious."

"Lying is dangerous for your health." Kiba didn’t doubt that.

"Well, if you’re that concerned we’ll just feed them to Akamaru. He’s got a strong stomach."

Great, there went his romantic gesture right down the dogs gullet without even an attempted taste. “It’s the thought that counts, right?” Kiba assured, planting a kiss on his cheek to try and lift his spirits. Gaara pursed his lips and put his arms down, defeated.

"I suppose."

Next time he was going with lingerie.


End file.
